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MUD client

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A mud client is a piece of software used to connect to a MUD. Generally a mud client is a very basic telnet client that lacks VT100 terminal emulation and the capability to perform telnet negotiations. On the other hand they are enhanced with features designed to specifically work well with mudding.

Standard features seen in most mud clients include ANSI color support, aliases, triggers and scripting. The client can often be extended almost indefinitely with its built-in scripting language. Most muds restrict the usage of scripts because it gives an unfair advantage, as well as the fear that the game will end up being played by fully automated clients instead of human beings.

History

The first mud client with any significant number of features was Tinytalk by Anton Rang in 1990, for Unix-like systems. This was followed in the same year by TinyFugue, originally by Greg Hudson and taken over by Ken Keys in 1991. TinyFugue has continued to evolve and remains one of the most popular clients today for Unix-like systems, and a Microsoft Windows version is also available.

Another early client was TinTin++ by Bill Reiss in 1993, which in turn was based on TinTin III, written by Peter Unold in 1992. From that point onwards mud clients slowly evolved, introducing concepts like data compression and auto mapping.

Until 1994 however, the only Mud Client available for Windows was basic Telnet. In November 1994, the first Windows Mud Client with Trigger support was released, VWMUD Master. Written by Vaughan Wynne-Jones, VWMUD Master was designed primarily for LPMUD, but later versions embraced other environments. VWMUD Master was upgraded through 1999, and a new Freeware version was released in February 2006 for Windows XP and Windows 2000.

Following on from Tintin's success, Mike Potter (also known as Zugg) was keen to produce a Windows port of the client. In 1995, zMUD reached v1.0 and began to be distributed. Initially, it was licensed as freeware, but Zugg realised that he could make a profit from sales of the client, and thus Zugg Software was formed, selling zMUD v4.0 as shareware.

Mud Client Support Table

The MUD client support table gives an overview of various mud clients and their capabilities. A larger but no longer maintained support table is available at the Cryosphere homepage.

Telnet extensions

Some MUD clients and servers have augmented basic TELNET / VT100 with a variety of new higher-level protocols and features. A widespread feature is MCCP, which specifies a method for compressing the data streams. Another, less used, extension is MXP, first developed by the Pueblo client but was then taken and extended by zMUD. Several of the more advanced clients are capable of handling MXP, which adds an HTML-like structure to a server's output, providing additional formatting capabilities among other things. Some other occasionally used protocols are MUD Sound Protocol, a means of playing sounds in MUDs, and the MUD Client Protocol, a framework for new client - server protocols.

List of clients

Free Software clients

Multiplatform or platform independent clients

Windows clients

  • DoNClient: A Free to use MUD client for Windows. Fully featured with triggers/aliases, and can be programmed in C#.
  • Dragonsong Mud Client: Free (GPLed), client for Windows written in C#. Features ANSI color, macros, aliases, logging and multiple connections in one window.
  • GMUD: a simple, full featured Windows based client.
  • Mud Master 2000: Free fully-featured MUD client for Windows XP. Supports standard features (aliases, customiseability, etc).
  • PowTTY: a client for Windows, based on PuTTY with the alias/trigger engine of powwow.
  • VWMUD Master for Windows XP: MUD client for Windows XP. TinTin style Triggers, aliases, mapping, plus extensive mouse support.
  • WinTin.Net: a FREE Windows client based on PuTTY and the scripting engine of TinTin++, C# and VB.NET. This client features such things as MXP(Mud Extension Protocol), MCCP(Mud Client Compression Protocol), multiple sessions, Wintin Chat Facility, as well as many more.

*nix clients

  • Gnome-Mud: A client for the GNOME desktop environment, once named amcl. Features include Python scripting and C modules.
  • KBtin: a major fork of TinTin++. Unix/Mac OS X only.
  • Powwow: a Unix-based client based on Cancan with powerful alias and trigger capabilities.
  • Kmuddy: an up-to-date feature-full client for the KDE desktop environment.
  • Kmud: a mud client for the KDE desktop environment. It hasn't been updated since 2002-09-29.
  • KMush: a native KDE application written in Java using the koala/qtjava bindings, particularly suited for MUSH softcoding.
  • Rapscallion: an advanced client for the Mac OS. Formerly shareware, it is now open source and free.
  • Tinyfugue: TinyFugue, aka "tf", is a flexible, screen-oriented MUD client, for use with any type of MUD. TinyFugue is one of the most popular and powerful mud clients.

Proprietary Clients

  • SimpleMU: Client for Windows.
  • MUSHClient: Client for Windows, also runs under WINE. Has support for several programming languages.
  • Portal: Portal Mud Client for Windows
  • Savitar: A MacOS client with a fair amount of features.
  • zMUD: Versatile MUD/Telnet client for PC/Windows; supports VT100 (rare amongst MUD clients).
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